Saturday Morning Slam 09-08-12

“Good morning, WWE Universe! And welcome to Saturday Morning Slam! It’s Back to School season and we’re taking the WWE Superstars back to school with you!”

Ok, I will be honest. I was ready to pull the plug on this whole “review all the old back episodes” endeavor, but then I hear that the show is more or less officially canceled, which means we’re getting no new episodes. That makes me sad. According to Dave, the idea was that CW wanted the show to become a recap show. Um, what? This show was arguably the only WWE product that actually had a personality, and that made it great. Good for Vince & crew for saying, ‘Thanks, no.” Plus when I get footage in the opening of this episode of not only Dean Douglas but also THE GENIUS in the first 30 seconds?

Yeah, I’m still in.

But it they do another Fave Five about, say, the smartest people in WWE history and the Miz makes that list, screw the charm. I’m out.

Off we go to our opening segment, the Saturday Morning Spotlight this week featuring Damien Sandow. Because we’re going back to school. I know this due to the fact that the announcer has said it, no joke, five times since the show started less than two minutes ago. We get a pretty awesome recap of his exploits, complete with Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”. If ever there was a classical piece that should be a wrestling entrance theme,it’s this one.

Bet you didn’t know you’d be getting a classical music lesson today.

You would if you remembered that we’re all going BACK TO SCHOOL. If you didn’t, no worries, I am sure the announcer will bring it up again. Probably 43 more times before this show is over.

Before I go any further, though, I should note that the shot above in the video package that triggered my brain to search through the backlog of generally worthless wrestling data I have. But seeing Damien looking totally sleazy brought back the days of him in Ohio Valley Wrestling as Aaron “The Idol” Stevens. He was a ladies man of the first degree, and…well…here you go:

Yes, that is the same guy.

And yes, he went from copulating with Beth Phoenix and the Big Nip…BNV (if SMS is G-rated, I should probably keep this column as close to that as possible as well) to doing Damien’s Dictionary segments in which he teaches us the meaning of words such as “matriculate” (meaning: to begin, to enter, to enroll, or to join).

Thinking he may have been better off with the OVW gimmick. But that would have been “sophomoric”, ironically Damien’s second word (meaning: childish, adolescent, or juvenile). Damien is of course no such thing, and was in fact the valedictorian (meaning: the highest ranking student academically in a graduating class) in pre-school, grammar school, middle school, high school, and college.

To quote Mike Check, “fascinating.”

Thankfully, this leads us to the video vault, wherein we get a look at the smartest men in the history of the WWE. First up would be…

Yes! Bobby “The Brain” Heenan!

Now if you are new to these parts, you may not realize why your old buddy and your old pal RD Reynolds really started following wrestling. It’s because of the Brain. Seriously the most entertaining man I have ever, EVER, seen in wrestling. Back when he was on Prime Time, I would tape the show each week, but I would NOT tape the matches – I would just tape his bits with Gorilla Monsoon. So if you like WrestleCrap at all, you can thank the Brain. Mad props to WWE for putting him on this show and thus erasing any memories I have of the horrendous show I watched last week.

Even better, we get bits on the Genius (another early RD favorite – and to this day, I still think Lanny Poffo rocks, just don’t ask him about his ‘party tricks’) and…

…yes, DEAN DOUGLAS. Was NOT expecting that. Now having not expected it, I will note that if I thought he was going to show up, I would FULLY expect the fact that WWE would show clip after clip of him being pummeled and noting that he got a “failing grade”.

Somewhere Hunter and his cronies are smirking.

We also get a little on Matt Striker, but it doesn’t include December to Dismember footage (the induction of which is availablein the archives) featuring the trunks where his face got jammed up his anus, so we will just ignore it.

That’s probably for the best.

More yakkety yakking is next, as WWE Superstars are asked what their favorite subject was in school! In hindsight, that exclamation point is misplaced, as it leads to the most boring 90 seconds possibly in the entire history of this company. Unless you wanted to know that Kofi liked science or that Brodus Clay was the king of kickball, just move along, there’s nothing to see here.

Finally we get to our match o’ the week, Sin Cara versus Curtis Ax…err, Michael McGillicutty. Is this the match that made everyone stand up and notice that he had talent and needed to be given a push?

C’mon, you think Vince, Hunter, or Steph EVER watched this show?

Anyway, we spin the SMS Commentator Wheel of Misfortune and we get…

…a very giddy William Regal, who apparently loves children. “I used to go to school with them!” he notes. Regal then tells us that he has known McGillicutty since he was a little boy, as he knew his father. “Who was a WWE legend,” he tells us…without ever mentioning his name. I can only surmise this led literally tens of SMS watchers to head out to Google “WWE Hall of Famer McGillicutty”and then be baffled as to why the results came up with this:

I was always a big Beulah fan, so maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

CM Punk is up next telling us not to try his moves at home. That’s sage advice, as every time I see him do his horrible top rope elbow drop I think he’s going to kill himself.

Back in the ring, McGillicutty has taken over with a series of chinlocks and arm bars. Every bit as thrilling as it sounds. Eventually Sin Cara comes back with some goofy tilt-a-whirl dealie that is so unimpressive that it doesn’t even warrant a grab. I then thought about doing Scott Steiner’s tilt-a-whirl as a GIF instead, but that led me to doing a YouTube search for it and remembering that he once used to use the SCREWDRIVER as a finisher.

Yeah, you know...the WrestleCrap guy. Been here since before day 1, I have. You can hang out with me on Facebook. (I'm on there quite a bit) or follow my exploits on Twitter (I'm on there not quite so often).
Thanks, and Keep on Crappin'!